A malware can cause harm to a system or a network directly, or subvert them to be used by others, rather than as intended by their owners. It is a combination of two words: Mal meaning Bad and Ware meaning Software. In this tutorial, we will discuss various precautionary ways and the tools that can be used to protect our systems and networks from harmful Malware.
Audience
This tutorial has been prepared mainly for those professionals who are within the IT industry, working as IT specialists, System administrators, and Security administrators.
Malware Removal – Overview
In the recent years, we have heard of many people and big corporates losing their precious data or being in a situation where their systems are hacked. These unwanted activities are being caused, in most of the cases, using a piece of software inserted into a network system, server or a personal computer. This piece of software is known as a malware.
A malware can cause harm to a system or a network directly, or subvert them to be used by others, rather than as intended by their owners. It is a combination of two words: Mal meaning Bad and Ware meaning Software.
Based on www.av-test.org, the statistics are growing tremendously. Please look at the following graph to understand the growth of Malware.
| Maximum risk (over 60%) 22 countries including | ||
|---|---|---|
| Kyrgyzstan (60.77%) | Afghanistan (60.54%). | |
| High risk (41-60%): 98 countries including | ||
| India (59.7%) | Egypt (57.3%) | Belarus (56.7%) |
| Turkey (56.2%) | Brazil (53.9%) | China (53.4%) |
| UAE (52.7%) | Serbia (50.1%) | Bulgaria (47.7%) |
| Argentina (47.4%) | Israel (47.3%) | Latvia(45.9%) |
| Spain (44.6%) | Poland (44.3%) | Germany (44%) |
| Greece (42.8%) | France (42.6%) | Korea (41.7%), |
| Austria (41.7%) | ||
| Moderate local infection rate (21-40.99%): 45 countries including | ||
| Romania(40%) | Italy (39.3%) | Canada (39.2%) |
| Australia (38.5%) | Hungary (38.2%) | Switzerland (37.2%) |
| USA (36.7%) | UK (34.7%) | Ireland (32.7%) |
| Netherlands(32.1%), | Czech Republic (31.5%) | Singapore (31.4%) |
| Norway (30.5%) | Finland (27.4%) | Sweden (27.4%), |
| Denmark (25.8%), | Japan (25.6%). |
Malware can be designed from the hackers for different purposes like destroying data, sending the data automatically to some other place, altering the data or can keep monitoring it until the specified time-period. Disable security measures, damage the information system, or otherwise affect the data and system integrity.
They also come in different types and forms, which we will discuss in detail in the upcoming chapters of this tutorial.